This study was undertaken to ascertain to what degree, if any, virtual reality training was superior to monitor based training. By analyzing the results in a 2x3 ANOVA it was found that little difference in training resulted from using virtual reality or monitor interaction to facilitate training. The data did suggest that training involving rich textured environments might be more beneficial under virtual reality conditions, however nothing significant was found in the analysis. It might be possible that significance could be obtained by comparing a virtual reality set-up with higher fidelity to a monitor trial.

Currently, medical errors are one of the most common causes of death in the United
States (Makary & Daniel, 2016), which includes errors related to look-alike, sound-alike prescription drug name confusion. The use of Tall Man lettering, a text enhancement style that capitalizes the dissimilar portions of words, has been recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) since 2008 in order to make it easier for healthcare professionals to distinguish and identify two otherwise easily confusable drug names. Research performed on the efficacy of Tall Man lettering and similar text enhancements in successfully differentiating look-alike, sound-alike drug names has thus far been either null or inconclusive. Therefore, it is crucial that further research be conducted in order to provide a path to alleviation by increasing the understanding of the problem, and providing evidence to a clearer solution (Lambert, Schroeder & Galanter, 2015). The objective of the current study was to measure the efficacy of Tall Man Lettering and additional text enhancement strategies through an experiment that replicates some of the previously used methods of research. The current study utilized a repeated measures design. Participants were shown a prime drug name, followed by a brief mask, and then either the same drug name or its confusable drug name pair. They were then asked to identify whether the two drug names presented were identical or different. All of the participants completed a total of four trials representing each condition (regular, Tall Man, Tall Man Bold, highlight) and a practice trial. Overall performance was measured through accuracy and reaction time, which revealed that regular, lowercase text was more effective than any of the other text enhancements, including Tall Man lettering, in quickly and accurately identifying differences in drug names. These results seem to add to the body of inconclusive research on the efficacy of Tall Man lettering and similar text enhancement strategies for reducing drug name confusion. Given the significant impact that drug name confusion errors can have on patient safety, it is imperative that further research be conducted in order to give a more definitive answer of whether text enhancement strategies like Tall Man lettering are helpful in practice.

Future autonomous vehicle systems will be diverse in design and functionality since they will be produced by different brands. In the automotive industry, trustworthiness of a vehicle is closely tied to its perceived safety. Trust involves dependence on another agent in an uncertain situation. Perceptions of system safety, trustworthiness, and performance are important because they guide people’s behavior towards automation. Specifically, these perceptions impact how reliant people believe they can be on the system to do a certain task. Over or under reliance can be a concern for safety because they involve the person allocating tasks between themselves and the system in inappropriate ways. If a person trusts a brand they may also believe the brand’s technology will keep them safe. The present study measured brand trust associations and performance expectations for safety between twelve different automobile brands using an online survey.

The literature and results of the present study suggest perceived trustworthiness for safety of the automation and the brand of the automation, could together impact trust. Results revelated that brands closely related to the trust-based attributes, Confidence, Secure, Integrity, and Trustworthiness were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a safer way. While, brands more related to the trust-based attributes Harmful, Deceptive, Underhanded, Suspicious, Beware, and Familiar were expected to produce autonomous vehicle technology that performs in a less safe way.

These findings contribute to both the fields of Human-Automation Interaction and Consumer Psychology. Typically, brands and automation are discussed separately however, this work suggests an important relationship may exist. A deeper understanding of brand trust as it relates to autonomous vehicles can help producers understand potential for over or under reliance and create safer systems that help users calibrate trust appropriately. Considering the impact on safety, more research should be conducted to explore brand trust and expectations for performance between various brands.

ELearning, distance learning, has been a fast-developing topic in educational area. In 1999, Mayer put forward “Cognitive Theory of Multimedia learning” (Moreno, & Mayer, 1999). The theory consisted of several principles. One of the principles, Modality Principle describes that when learners are presented with spoken words, their performance are better than that with on-screen texts (Mayer, R., Dow, & Mayer, S. 2003; Moreno, & Mayer, 1999).It gave an implication that learners performance can be affected by modality of learning materials. A very common tool in education in literature and language is narrative. This way of storytelling has received success in practical use. The advantages of using narrative includes (a) inherent format advantage such as simple structure and familiar language and ideas, (b) motivating learners, (c) facilitate listening, (d) oral ability and (e)provide schema for comparison in comprehension.

Although this storytelling method has been widely used in literature, language and even moral education, few studies focused it on science and technology area.

The study aims to test the effect of narrative effect in multimedia setting with science topic. A script-based story was applied. The multimedia settings include a virtual human with synthetic speech, and animation on a solar cell lesson. The experiment design is a randomized alternative- treatments design, in which participants are requested to watch a video with pedagogical agent in story format or not. Participants were collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Result of transfer score and retention score showed that no significant difference between narrative and non-narrative condition. Discussion was put forward for future study.

Interface design has a large impact on the usability of a system, and the addition of multitasking only makes these systems more difficult to use. Information processing, mental workload, and interface design are determining factors that impact the performance of usability, and therefore interface design needs to be more adapted to users undergoing a high mental workload. This study examines how a primary task, visual tracking, is affected by a secondary task, memory. Findings show that a high mental workload effects reaction time and memory performance on layouts with a high index of difficulty. Further research should analyze the effects of manipulating target size and distance apart independently from manipulating the index of difficulty on performance.

Highly automated vehicles require drivers to remain aware enough to takeover

during critical events. Driver distraction is a key factor that prevents drivers from reacting

adequately, and thus there is need for an alert to help drivers regain situational awareness

and be able to act quickly and successfully should a critical event arise. This study

examines two aspects of alerts that could help facilitate driver takeover: mode (auditory

and tactile) and direction (towards and away). Auditory alerts appear to be somewhat

more effective than tactile alerts, though both modes produce significantly faster reaction

times than no alert. Alerts moving towards the driver also appear to be more effective

than alerts moving away from the driver. Future research should examine how

multimodal alerts differ from single mode, and see if higher fidelity alerts influence

takeover times.

The current study investigated the task of coloring static images with multimedia learning to determine the impact on retention and transfer scores. After watching a multimedia video on the formation of lightning participants were assigned to either a passive, active, or constructive condition based on the ICAP Framework. Participants colored static images on key concepts from the video, passive condition observed the images, active condition colored the images by applying the concepts, and the constructive condition colored the images by generating new ideas and concepts. The study did not support the hypothesis that the constructive condition would have increased retention and transfer scores over the active and passive conditions. The mental effort measures did not show significance among groups in relation to learning but perception measures did show an increase in participants enjoyment and engagement. Since the coloring craze has become more accepted for adults then could coloring be a way to increase participants learning through engagement.

The current study investigated how multimedia pacing (learner-control versus system-paced) and presentation styles (visual-only versus audio/visual) impact learning physics concept material, mental effort, and self-efficacy. This 2X2 factorial study randomly assigned participants into one of four conditions that manipulated presentation style (visual-only versus audio/visual) and pacing of the content (system-paced versus learning-controlled). Participant's learning was measured by recording their retention of information and ability to transfer information. Measures of perceived difficulty (mental effort) and perceived ability (self-efficacy) were also obtained. No significant effects were observed in this study which doesn’t support the existence of either the modality or reverse modality effect at least in these noisier online learning environments. In addition, the hypothesis that their effects could be an artifact of experimental design could not be proven as the learner control condition did not yield any significant results.

This study exmaines the effect of in-vehicle infotainment display depth on driving performance. More features are being built into infotainment displays, allowing drivers to complete a greater number of secondary tasks while driving. However, the complexity of completing these tasks can take attention away from the primary task of driving, which may present safety risks. Tasks become more time consuming as the items drivers wish to select are buried deeper in a menu’s structure. Therefore, this study aims to examine how deeper display structures impact driving performance compared to more shallow structures.

Procedure. Participants complete a lead car following task, where they follow a lead car and attempt to maintain a time headway (TH) of 2 seconds behind the lead car at all times, while avoiding any collisions. Participants experience five conditions where they are given tasks to complete with an in-vehicle infotainment system. There are five conditions, each involving one of five displays with different structures: one-layer vertical, one-layer horizontal, two-layer vertical, two-layer horizontal, and three-layer. Brake Reaction Time (BRT), Mean Time Headway (MTH), Time Headway Variability (THV), and Time to Task Completion (TTC) are measured for each of the five conditions.

Results. There is a significant difference in MTH, THV, and TTC for the three-layer condition. There is a significant difference in BRT for the two-layer horizontal condition. There is a significant difference between one- and two-layer displays for all variables, BRT, MTH, THV, and TTC. There is also a significant difference between one- and three-layer displays for TTC.

Conclusions. Deeper displays negatively impact driving performance and make tasks more time consuming to complete while driving. One-layer displays appear to be optimal, although they may not be practical for in-vehicle displays.

Multimedia educational technologies have increased their presence in traditional and online classrooms over the course of the previous decade. These tools hold value and can promote positive learning outcomes but are reliant on students’ degree of cognitive engagement and self-regulation. When students are not cognitively engaged or have low self-regulation capabilities, their interaction with the technology becomes less impactful because of decreased learning outcomes. Building or altering technologies to cognitively engage students is costly and timely; the present study investigates if introducing higher agency roles, to change the role of the student, increases learning outcomes. Specifically, this study investigates if higher agency roles of a designer or teacher enhances cognitive engagement and improves learning when compared to the conventional role of a learner. Improved learning outcomes were observed from the pretest to posttest for the learner, designer, and teacher role. Participants engaged with higher agency roles did not demonstrate more growth from pretest to posttest when compared to the control group, but participants in the teacher role outperformed those in the designer role. Additionally, reading ability did not impact learning gains across groups. While students who engaged with higher agency roles did not achieve greater learning outcomes than students in the control group, results indicate a learning effect across groups. Results of this study suggest that it was underpowered. Further research is needed to determine the extent of the impact that higher agency roles have on learning outcomes.